Polarimetric Interferometry – Remote Sensing Applications

This lecture is mainly based on the work of S.R. Cloude and presents examples for remote sensing applications Polarimetric SAR Interferometry (PolInSAR). PolInSAR has its origins in remote sensing and was first developed for applications in 1997 using SIRC L-Band data [1,2]. In its original form it involved generating phase differences between interferograms formed using different polarization combinations. Later these phase differences were observed to be correlated with vegetation height [2]. However, it was quickly realized that more accurate estimates of height could be obtained by correcting the phase differences using coherent wave scattering models [3,4,6]. Since then there have been several groups working on the development and inversion of suitable models for the interpretation of POLInSAR data. A particularly useful model, which presents a good compromise between physical structure and model complexity is a variant of that first developed by Treuhaft et al [3,4]. This 2-layer model is widely used in interferometric SAR (InSAR) applications. Here we review its main structure and importance in POLInSAR.